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by Marcas O'Kelly (Author)
The Makurian Invasion of 748 AD and the Forgotten Christian Kingdom That Defied Islam. In 748 AD, when the Umayyad Caliphate was collapsing into chaos, King Kyriakos of Makuria assembled an army of one hundred thousand men and marched hundreds of miles into Egypt to liberate the imprisoned Coptic Patriarch. This dramatic military intervention by a Christian African kingdom represents one of the most remarkable projections of power in medieval history, yet it remains virtually unknown outside specialist circles. This comprehensive analytical history reconstructs the invasion through meticulous examination of archaeological evidence, Arabic chronicles, and Coptic sources, while exploring the thousand-year history of Christian Nubia from its Meroitic foundations through its ultimate collapse under Mamluk pressure. The work examines how the Kingdom of Makuria maintained independence against successive Islamic empires, how the Baqt treaty created unprecedented diplomatic equilibrium, how the Darb al-Arba'in trade generated Golden Age prosperity, and why this sophisticated African civilization has been largely forgotten. Through detailed analysis of military strategy, diplomatic negotiations, economic networks, and cultural achievements, the book reveals a medieval African kingdom that created magnificent churches, developed its own written language, and demonstrated that Christian states could defend themselves and project power far beyond their borders in an age of Islamic expansion.
